Basecamp vs. Redtail CRM

Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.

Incentivized

It is extremely well suited to client management in the insurance and financial services industries. I think it would not be nearly as useful in a retail setting as many of the features would be irrelevant.

Incentivized

• Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
• The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
• Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• Redtail CRM gives the capability to have a place to store all client-related documents in a readily accessible, yet secure, location.
• Redtail CRM has a feature to input notes and comments on particular clients in order to keep track of communications with and steps taken for those clients. Those notes can be easily accessed across the firm.
• Redtail CRM allows all email communications to be stored in a safe and secure manner as well as making those communications accessible on demand.

Incentivized

• High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
• Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
• Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.

Incentivized

• I would like to see the ability to push annuity business into Redtail like brokerage accounts.
• I would like to be able to attach documents to specific notes instead of just contacts in general.
• Those are the only two cons that I have.

Incentivized

When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.

The platform is easy to use and train on. It is a one stop shop with all the information needed to maintain a clean client relationship. We recently had our scheduled audit done and Redtail was helpful in pulling the different reports we needed to produce for the audit

Incentivized

It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.

Incentivized

Was good and still is good. Seems like when a company acquires another they try to squeeze out more profit and forget what made them successful in the first place. Reducing staff and support seems inevitable, even though the number of users has increased significantly over the past 10 years

Incentivized

I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.

Incentivized

Generally speaking, Red Tail has been available whenever needed. there was a time period however where it was down and not available, giving 500 errors when trying to log in. They explained that it was due to upgrades they were making and it has virtually disappeared. Has now been available 99% of the time.

Incentivized

Overall general performance is quite satisfactory. Some of the automation factors that other products have available are slowly migrating to Red Tail. When these add ons are available and fully implemented, it greatly increases the power and usability of the CRM. Occasionally there are products that will not intergrade due to the nature of how they are set up

Incentivized

For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.

Incentivized

We use the HELP section of Redtail often. If it is taking you more than 5 minutes to figure out than go to the HELP desk. We have had only great experiences when reaching out for help. We also LOVED the Redtail University we attended.

Incentivized

Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)

Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.

Incentivized

Quite honestly, I have visibility into a number of CRM systems and Redtail stands alone as the strongest contender. It has the most thorough and customizable interface of any I have encountered. There are few other tools that offer the unmatched flexibility and the depth that any business could stand to profit from.

Incentivized

The biggest problem seems to have been with the email module. connection issues, sync issues, compliance updates, etc. The concept is great however there seems to be issues in getting it to work consistently. When it works, it works well. It seems that the frequency of downtime had been greatly reduced however.

Incentivized

• It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
• It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
• The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.

Incentivized

• Redtail makes it easy to log customer interactions for compliance related fields.
• With Redtail, you don't have to worry about losing information. Just pull up the customer's profile and make some notes on what is going on. You can never be too detailed in the advisor industry.
• The integration ability at Redtail really saves us heaps of time. You can feed information over from the custodian straight over to another 3rd party. API is game changing!

Incentivized